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Wednesday, November 13, 2013

Lamb Vindaloo

"I don't care what my friends say about my lunch. All I know is I got good food. If they think my food is weird, then they're missing out on a lot of good stuff!"

Here is the fact number 1:

My children bring lunches to school everyday.

They tried school issued lunches for a couple of months, that was about 5 years ago when we just moved to Bay area. But quickly, they got bored and wanted lunches from home.

Big C, who is a freshman in high school, still refuses to buy food from school cafeteria. He said the line is too long, and the food is mediocre, at best.

Little C, who is in 5th grade, concurs.

Fact number 2:

As everybody can tell from this blog, my cooking repertoire is, you know, large and random.

I cook what I want to cook, and oftentimes my poor family doesn't really have a choice.

From mac & cheese to Thai curry, from pasta to jerk chicken, if it's on the table, they'll eat it.

Fact number 3:

Sandwiches and pizza are ok, but dinner leftover can be next day lunches, too.

Now that I have mentioned those 3 points above, it's only understandable that my kids are used to bringing some pretty weird stuff to school. Maybe weird by most school children's standard.

I sometimes wonder if their friends ever make comments about it.

So, after dinner last night I asked my children, out of curiosity. The comment above is big C's answer to my question. His little brother simply nodded, followed by, "I don't care either!"

This mom is a proud mom.

Not only because the boys are very open minded about trying different stuff, but they have shown me they chose to be themselves and not worrying about other people's opinions.

They went to school with lamb vindaloo, aloo gobi and basmati rice for lunch today. And came back home with 2 empty food containers.

Ingredients:

3 tablespoons coriander seeds

2 tablespoons cumin seeds

8 bay leaves

1 tablespoon black peppercorn

2 tablespoon cardamom seeds

1 tablespoon cloves

2 tablespoons dried red chili

1 tablespoon mustard seeds

2 inches cinnamon stick

1 tablespoon cayenne powder

1 tablespoon turmeric powder

1 tablespoon fenugreek seeds

2 pounds lamb shoulder, cubed

10 garlic cloves, crushed

2 tablespoons grated fresh ginger

1 large onion, chopped

2 potatoes, peeled and cubed

1 pound tomatoes, chopped

2 green chilies, chopped

1 cup wine vinegar

1 cup yogurt

4 tablespoons ghee/oil

Salt to taste

Directions:

Heat a medium skillet, add the first 12 ingredients into the skillet and roast for a few minutes, until the seeds start to change color and crackle. Using mortar and pestle, grind the spices into fine powder. Transfer spice powder to a large glass bowl. Add yogurt, vinegar, garlic, ginger, and salt into the bowl, mix to combine. Add lamb cubes into the marinade, toss to combine. Place the bowl in the refrigerator to marinate for at least 6 hours to overnight.

turned out great. perhaps a bit too much cardamom for me, but my guinea pig recipe testers seemed to like it well enough. made a couple of additions/substitutions: added about 1/4 cup cream cheese (ran out of plain yogurt) at the end, plus a couple tablespoons of brown sugar, a splash of fish sauce, and some chopped cooking greens....seemed to balance out the spice-full/spicy flavors well